Chapter Twenty Five
Jacket
After the edge of town, it’s nothing but dense trees looming tall in the dark and then nothing. Flat for as far as the eye can make out with some looming shapes of hills on the horizon.
Pointing my bike to the north, heading for the coastal mountains, it’s good to be riding in the night blackness. The freedom I crave wraps me like a cloak and I’m relieved to be alone again, not needing to answer to anyone for my actions.
That lasts for less than an hour.
The wind on my face, through my hair, begins to feel less invigorating. It’s replaced by an emptiness gnawing outward from my core, making its way to my skin lining like a worm in an apple.
I shake it off and keep going. Sure, I missed saying goodbye to my best dude and all the others that came out specially. They probably won’t even notice I’m gone. And if they do they wont think much of it. Like Stick said, vanishing is what I do.
Fuck that.
I veer off to the side of the road into a sandbar and skid to a stop on my heel.
I turn the bike around and kick off, heading back in the direction I’ve come from. I’m not that guy that walks out. Not on his friends. Not when they made the effort to come to the shindig from all over the place on my say so.
The little aunties have a special place in my heart. They feel like the family I never had, always loving, always understanding and not withdrawing affection when you do something wrong. Who fucking knows if they’ll be around next time I pass through this way? The urge to give each one of them a gentle hug is pulling me back.
And then I’ll be on my way and the first town I pull into, I’ll hit up a bar and find myself...
I veer off to the side of the road into a sandbar and skid to a stop on my heel.
“Fuck. How ‘bout we face the fucking elephant in the room,” I tell myself, looking around at the endless darkness to clear my head.
I can’t imagine picking up a woman. The idea of it feels all fucking wrong. There’s only one woman I want and that’s what’s yanking me back there. This is my one chance. She’ll be leaving to go back to LA tomorrow, today now. And I have no idea where she lives in that huge city. In a month or a week she could be hooking up with some other guy, even asking him to be her fake fiance for a fun weekend and the idea of that incenses me so much my blood boils up in my veins.
Because I can’t stand the thought that anyone else might lay one hand on her. I’m the only one that should be able to do that. She’s mine.
“No, she’s not yours.” I say out loud. “Okay but she could be.” I reply. “No she couldn't she told you to get lost.”
And now I’m having a convo with myself – the first sign of madness.
I turn the bike around and head back toward freedom. I can’t do this. I’m not made for being tied down anyway. What would be the point of begging her to try something when I don’t even know what we’d be trying. And then there’s the small technical hitch of her telling me to hit the road, even when I did attempt to plead with her.
“You didn’t try that hard though. You asked her to talk about it and when she said no you caved. That wasn’t much of a show of how much you want her. She probably assumes you’re a disappearing act, same as your best friend.”
Shit.
I veer off to the side of the road into a sandbar and skid on my heel but just to slow down enough to make the U-turn.
When I make it back to the house, it’s in darkness and silent. Because it’s the middle of the night, obviously. I search out my phone, yeah, after 3am. And the app thing is open to a photo of the wedding breakfast. My buds and the aunties all in a row, smiling cheesily at the camera. Everyone having a good time, including Bella.
I scroll down and there’s Stick and his bride about to leave, waving happily in front of that old Airstream, the steel all shined up so it’s glowing in the dark. Then a photo of some flowers – the caption says ‘I caught it’ whatever that means. What it signifies to me is that Bella went on with her life, enjoyed the parry without giving this asshat another thought. I shouldn’t have come.
I heel the kickstand, ready to turn the bike and head off. This time for good but then the front door is pulled back an inch.
A tiny hand beckons me urgently. I unstraddle and walk up the path to the cracked door. A shining face peeping through at me.
“Dottie, what are you doing awake at this hour, babe,” I whisper-husk.
“Waiting for you of course,” she whisper-hisses back.
“What?”
She puts a finger to her lips telling me to stfu and I do. Then I follow her up the stairs. She silently points out a tread that squeaks, showing me where to step around it.
“I feel like the madam in a brothel,” she giggles.
“Dottie I’m shocked that a lady like you knows about that stuff.,” I say in mock horror.
“Get on with you. Can’t you tell yet that I wasn't born yesterday?”
“That’s my fiancee.”
“You have to ask her first,” she glints.
“You think she’d say yes?”
“Now that would be spoiling the surprise if I told you.”
She heads into the room Stick and Scherri slept in until they took off.
“Now you just wait right here,” she orders me. My favorite Major-general.
She disappears and for a moment it occurs to me she’s gone to get a rifle. Or Bella’s father with a shotgun. No, he wouldn't be in this house, this belongs to Stick’s dad, not Bella’s. Christ, relationships can get complicated. I almost want to head downstairs and out the door. The desire to take off is worse than when we go out on a mission.
Just remember, courage is facing the fear that tries to make you run and hide, not the lack of it. Maybe I run because people always expect me to be a hero not a human. They don't get that a hero is someone facing their terrors, not someone that doesn't have any.
Yeah all that sounds good, but the idea that Bella could look at me with those beautiful big eyes and tell me ‘I don’t want you here’ again is ripping me up. I have never been so fucking nervous in my life.
“Hey.”
My cock and my heart hurl like double grenades when I look up and see her walking nervously into the room.
“Hey,” I say.
She’s wearing a slip thing, white and almost transparent. Her perfect body is as vivid in my mind as though I still had my hands on her soft skin. I don’t want to act like a beast but there’s nothing I can do to stop the bulge growing hard as granite in my pants.
“You came back,” she says, shyly which I didn't expect. I don’t know what I expected but not her all docile.
“Yeah. To tell you I’m sorry.”
“Is that all?”